Forecast for the Week

The economic calendar is jam-packed with reports scheduled for release every day this week.

• Housing news is plentiful beginning Monday with Existing Home Sales. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index follows on Tuesday, while New Home Sales will be released on Wednesday.
• We’ll get a read on how consumers are feeling with Consumer Confidence on Tuesday and the Consumer Sentiment Index on Friday.
• Look for the closely-watched Consumer Price Index on Thursday, along with Durable Goods Orders and Weekly Initial Jobless Claims.
• Manufacturing news via the Chicago PMI will be reported on Friday.
• Also on Friday, Gross Domestic Product for the fourth quarter of 2014 will give us an important update on the U.S. economy.

Remember: Weak economic news normally causes money to flow out of Stocks and into Bonds, helping Bonds and home loan rates improve, while strong economic news normally has the opposite result. The chart below shows Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), which are the type of Bond on which home loan rates are based.

When you see these Bond prices moving higher, it means home loan rates are improving—and when they are moving lower, home loan rates are getting worse.

To go one step further—a red “candle” means that MBS worsened during the day, while a green “candle” means MBS improved during the day. Depending on how dramatic the changes were on any given day, this can cause rate changes throughout the day, as well as on the rate sheets we start with each morning.

As you can see in the chart below, Mortgage Bonds have fallen lately but have managed to rebound in recent days. Home loan rates remain just above historic lows.

Chart: Fannie Mae 3.0% Mortgage Bond (Friday February 20, 2015)

The Mortgage Market Guide View…

Protect Yourself From Identity Theft

More than 10 million people are victims of identity theft each year. The most common forms of identity theft are government documents and benefits fraud, followed by credit card fraud, phone or utilities fraud and bank fraud.

Those who steal your identity can damage your reputation and your credit status, in addition to costing you time and money. Follow these tips to protect yourself:

• Guard your social security number. Don’t carry your card and only give out your SSN when absolutely necessary.
• Create hard-to-guess PINs and make sure you change them every so often.
• Keep your PINs private. Avoid writing a PIN on a credit or debit card, or on a slip of paper.
• Collect mail promptly. Ask the post office to put your mail on hold when you are away for more than a few days.
• Watch for routine mail. If bills or statements are late, contact the sender.
• Keep receipts. Compare receipts with account statements to monitor for unauthorized transactions.
• Shred unwanted documents like receipts, account statements and expired cards.
• Cut up credit offers that come in the mail.
• Store personal information in a safe place at home and at work.
• Don’t respond to unsolicited requests for personal information in the mail, over the phone or online. The IRS, for example, doesn’t request information via email.
• Fortify your home computer by installing firewalls, virus-detection software and updated security.
• Check your credit report once a year to monitor unauthorized activity.

The Federal Trade Commission has a series of articles on “Immediate Steps to Repair Identity Theft,” which includes advice for placing a fraud alert and creating an identity theft report. This helpful information can be found on the FTC website.

Please feel free to pass these helpful tips along to your team, clients and colleagues!

Sources: bjs.gov, consumer.ftc.gov, irs.gov, usa.gov

Economic Calendar for the Week of February 23 – February 27

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